Le Monstre
by ErikadeCarpentier
Summary: The world is a scary place for little Eponine Thénardier, especially when there are monsters prowling around the inn she calls home. Luckily, her father, the brave general, can scare them all away! Just lighthearted fluff. Reviews and reviewers are lovely!


The clock in the great room chimed four o clock in the morning at the Thénardier chophouse, which of course meant that everyone had very recently gone to sleep. The pickpockets and prostitutes were safely in their beds, each dreaming of money in their own special ways. The rats which nested in the kitchen and underneath the slightly rotten floorboards were tucked away in their burrows. Even the master and mistress of the house were fairly heavily sedated in their bed after a long day of jacking up prices and pushing quality to Hell. Only one pair of bright, brown eyes glinted in the dim moonlight which faded in through the dusty windows.

Little Eponine, who slept beside her father in their bedroom, couldn't sleep. She could have sworn she had seen a monster just outside the door; a great, hideous thing with sharp, glistening, gnashing teeth and matted, stinking green fur, something that had come in from the woods outside, like her _maman_ always told her would happen to bad little girls who didn't listen to their mothers. She had been rather cross that morning… She gave a muffled squeal of terror at that epiphany and tugged at her father's nightshirt.

"Papa, Papa!"

Pierre, who was in the midst of the Spanish campaign once more, woke up mumbling, "Wha-? Where's the canon…?" before turning to face his child. Beatrice, taking advantage of the commotion, stole the lion's share of the blanket before her husband could so much as curse her opportunistic nature.

"Eponine? Wot's wrong, 's time ta sleep," he mumbled, rubbing an eye and reaching for a lantern or candle from the bedside table.

"I heard a noise, Papa, and I think there's a monster outside! An ogre!"

Pierre pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Petite, it wos prob'bly someone wakin' up ta use the privy. Can ya get back ta sleep?"

She shook her head solemnly, tiny fingers clutching to her little rag doll, which had certainly seen better days. Her father sighed, seeing that it would take more than reassurances to get her back to bed.

"Alrigh', alrigh'… Would it make ya feel betta if I took ya 'round the 'ouse? Ya know monsters 'ave ta answer to a soldier." Everyone the mile around knew that he had been a general in Napoleon's army; he made sure of that. Eponine knew it better than most, and she idolized her father's grand tales of bravery, too young yet to realize that what wasn't pure fiction was exaggeration.

Another solemn nod as she slipped out of the bed and put on her socks. Pierre cursed lightly, bonking his knee on the bedside table as he lit a lantern and, in a sudden burst of fatherly brilliance, put on his old general's cap. Of course an ogre would be frightened of a member of the old guard. Who wouldn't be?

Taking his girl's tiny, soft hand in his calloused mitt, he held the lantern in front of them just as Beatrice was beginning to grumble about there being light in her eyes. He poked his head around both ways of the door, as if looking for intruders or creatures of the night. "See, Eponine? Nofin' 'ere but you, me, an' the floorboards."

"Maybe he went down the stairs, Papa?"

The man gave a long suffering sigh and relented to her plea, side-stepping out of the doorway to lead her down the creaking stairs. He might once have been afraid of waking his clients, but the bleeders were all heavy drinkers, so he wasn't too concerned. The flicker of the lantern cast odd shadows on the wall, making Eponine give another squeal of fright and cling closer to her giant of a father's leg; Papa would protect her. There was nothing in the world bigger than Papa, he could even touch the ceiling!

They entered the main hall area, benches and chairs haphazardly tossed about in disarray, though that was hardly an odd sight, particularly when the Thénardiers had been too tired to clean up at the end of the night. "See, petite? If an ogre 'ad come through 'ere, there'd be a trail." He said, trying to reason with the unreasonable. He shouldn't have been surprised when his daughter raised a silent hand, pointing at the very dark kitchen.

"Alrigh, alrigh', not that there's anyfin' edible in there…" he said as a sardonic aside, mostly to himself. He pushed the heavy door open and held the lantern up high so that the light illuminated the dirty counters, the piled up dishes in the dry sink, and the edges of the painfully bare pantry. "See? Nothin' to be afraid of."

Though she finally seemed to be calming down, she looked up at him with quavering lips, "J… Just in case, Papa… Can you tell anything that might be hiding in here to leave me alone?"

Smiling slightly, he looked down at the little girl's frightened, yet stoic face and nodded. "Course, petite…" Taking an authoritative stance and tone, as though he was telling the last drunk at the bar that he really, really ought to head to bed before Pierre himself had to throw him in his room, he stood in the center of the room. Speaking in a stern, but quiet tone, so as not to wake the house up, he told the monsters quite firmly that, "By order of the French National Army, any creature'a the night that may be 'idin' here is unda military arrest, an' must stay in 'ere until mornin'. Is that clear?" He held a hand to his ear, feeling horrifically silly, but glad that the only one could see him was his adoring daughter. "Right."  
He turned to said child and grunted, bending over to pick her up, "Now, if the inn passed the ogre inspection, it's time for little girls ta get back ta sleep, so they grow up strong an' pretty." He pressed her nose, which made her giggle, having apparently forgotten about the green, hideous monster prowling the hallways of her home. "Okay Papa…"  
He carried her back upstairs in one arm, the lantern in the other, and blew it out once she was safely in bed. He managed to slam his foot into the edge of the bedframe this time, cursing the nonexistence of God before he took his place with one arm around his wife's waist and the other beneath his head. Eponine nuzzled into her father's back, both in gratitude and because Beatrice was still hogging the blanket and this was the surest way to stay warm.  
"Good night Papa… I love you."

"I love you too, 'Ponine. Sweet dreams."


End file.
